Vice President Performance Optimization Jobs in Elgin, IL

## VP, Performance Creative and OperationsApplylocations: Chicago, Illinoistime type: Full timeposted on: Posted 3 Days Agojob requisition id: R2026-009046The Aspen Group (TAG) is one of the largest and most trusted retail healthcare business support organizations in the U.S. and has supported over 20,000 healthcare professionals and team members with close to 1,500 health and wellness offices across 48 states in four distinct categories: dental care, urgent care, medical aesthetics, and animal health. Working in partnership with independent practice owners and clinicians, the team is united with a single purpose: to prove that healthcare can be better and smarter for everyone. TAG provides a comprehensive suite of centralized business support services that power the impact of five consumer-facing businesses: Aspen Dental, ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers, WellNow Urgent Care, Chapter Aesthetic Studio, and Lovet. Each brand has access to a deep community of experts, tools and resources to grow their practices, and an unwavering commitment to delivering high-quality consumer healthcare experiences at scale.As a reflection of our current needs and planned growth we are very pleased to offer a new opportunity to join our dedicated team as a **VP, Performance Creative and Operations**.**Job Description:**The VP, Performance Creative is an executive leadership role with enterprise-wide accountability for the creative engine behind our paid media program, spanning paid social, paid search, digital video, display, and connected TV. This is not a functional manager position. This is an executive owner of one of the most consequential levers in our growth model, with the mandate and visibility to match.This person will define what AI-powered performance creative looks like at TAG, set the organizational standard for how creative is built, scaled, and evaluated, and operate as a strategic peer to our most senior commercial, brand, and marketing leaders, with a direct line of visibility to the C-suite. The core challenge is simple to state and hard to solve: we need an order of magnitude more creative output, engineered for performance from the first pixel. AI is the answer to that challenge, and this role is the one who wires it in.You will architect and lead a hybrid model of internal creatives and external AI-native designers, build the systems and team that sustain it, and own the results, including budget and resourcing decisions for the function. The work you build and ship will directly influence how many people walk through our doors.**Duties & Responsibilities:****1. Build and Lead the AI-Powered Creative Model***This is the defining responsibility of the role. AI is not a tool to dabble in here, it is the production infrastructure.** Architect a hybrid creative organization: internal creative strategists and brand-literate designers working in concert with a curated bench of external AI-native designers and production resources* Select, implement, and continuously evolve the AI toolset, covering generative design, video production, copy variation, and asset adaptation* Use AI as a design tool, a production accelerator, and a testing multiplier, enabling the team to produce at a volume and iteration speed that would be impossible through traditional production alone* Build the guardrails and quality standards that keep AI output on-brand and performance-ready across all channels and brand identities* Stay ahead of the AI creative landscape and bring a sharp, informed point of view to the C-suite on where the category is headed and what to adopt next, including build-vs-buy and vendor investment decisions**2. Own the Creative-to-Performance Feedback Loop*** Partner with paid media leads and commercial leadership to translate performance signals (CTR, CVR, hook rate, cost per appointment) into creative direction* Build a closed-loop system from brief to launch to iteration, ensuring creative learnings compound across campaigns and channels* Compress creative production cycles without sacrificing quality, bringing a velocity-first mindset to every workflow* Establish review cadences that keep the organization moving fast without sacrificing rigor**3. Build Scalable Testing Architecture*** Develop and own the creative testing roadmap across concept, variable, format, and audience dimensions* Leverage AI to dramatically expand testing volume, running more variables simultaneously than a traditional team could produce* Build SOPs, briefs, and production workflows that drive consistency and speed across brands and channels* Maintain a living research library of hooks, angles, and formats so learnings are accessible and actionable across the organization**4. Translate Brand into Performance Across Multiple Brand Identities*** Be the senior bridge between brand positioning and conversion-optimized creative across a portfolio of distinct consumer brands; neither can be sacrificed for the other* Develop creative principles and guardrails that let your team, including AI-assisted production, move fast without going off-brand* Build creative that works across the full consumer journey, from awareness through appointment booking* Manage creative simultaneously across national and geo-targeted local campaigns for multiple brands**5. Multi-Channel Creative Leadership*** Own creative strategy and output across paid social (Meta, TikTok), paid search, digital video, display, and CTV* Develop platform-specific creative that is genuinely native to each channel, not repurposed from a single master asset* Balance high-production and lo-fi approaches, including AI-generated formats, knowing when each earns more trust and converts better* Manage agency, AI design vendor, and production vendor relationships to supplement and scale in-house output, with direct accountability for vendor spend**6. Executive Leadership and Organizational Influence*** Operate as a member of the senior leadership team and a strategic peer to senior commercial, brand, and media executives, not just a creative executor* Serve as the executive voice for performance creative in C-suite and executive stakeholder conversations, presenting creative performance and forward strategy with clarity and confidence* Build and develop the performance creative team, including hiring, coaching, and organizational design as the function scales, with accountability for the function's structure and growth* Own resource allocation, vendor strategy, and technology investment decisions for the function at the enterprise level* Frame creative recommendations in terms of business outcomes and ROI, and hold the function accountable to those metrics**7. Data Fluency, Not Just Creative Instinct*** Define and track the creative KPIs that matter: hook rate, hold rate, CTR, CVR, cost per appointment* Use data to challenge assumptions and build the case for creative investment at the executive level* Find the story in the numbers and use it to drive creative decisions, including decisions about where AI-generated creative is winning or falling short**Qualifications:****Required*** 12+ years in performance creative, creative strategy, or performance marketing with clear accountability for measurable outcomes* 8+ years in a senior leadership role, including experience leading through managers across creative, strategy, or production functions* Demonstrated experience operating at the executive level, including regularly presenting to and influencing C-suite stakeholders* Deep hands-on experience with paid digital channels, particularly paid social and paid search, and creative best practices across each* Demonstrated ability to build creative testing frameworks that generate actionable signal at scale* Fluency with AI creative tools (generative image, video, copy) and a concrete point of view on deploying them at production scale* Experience building or managing a hybrid internal/external creative model, including AI-native vendors or freelancers* Comfort reading and interpreting performance data; you find the story in the numbers and use it to drive creative and business decisions* Proven track record influencing resource allocation, organizational design, and technology investment decisions at an executive level**Strongly Preferred*** Background in retail, retail healthcare, or another appointment- or location-based business model* Experience managing creative simultaneously across multiple distinct brand identities and geo-targeted markets* Track record building or scaling an in-house performance creative function from an early stage, including standing up the team and operating model* Experience managing agency and production vendor relationships for high-production formats such as CTV or digital video* Proven ability to use AI as both a design tool and a production accelerator, with examples of measurable output improvement\*This role is onsite 4 days/week in our Chicago office (Fulton Market District)Annual Salary Range: $225,000-$250,000/year, with a generous benefits package that includes paid time off, health, dental, vision, and 401(k) savings plan with match. #J-18808-Ljbffr